What is a bed

A bed is a piece of furniture to sleep on. It usually has a frame of wood or metal holding a soft pad or mattress. Thousands of years ago, before man began to live in towns and cities, he lived in caves, and his bed was usually a pile of leaves with skins of wild animals on top. As man become more civilized he learned to raise his bed above the ground. The bed had become a fine piece of furniture five thousand years ago. The ancient Egyptians had higb beds into which one had to climb with the aid of five or six steps.

For a headrest they used a halfround piece of stone, wood, or metal. The ancient Greeks had beds with a wooden frame and a board at the head. The frame had bands of animal hide laced across it and over this lacing animal skins were placed. The ancient Romans had very high beds with attached steps. Mattresses used by the Romans were stuffed with hay, reed, wool, or small feathers. Small cushions were placed at the head of the bed. The bed covers used by the rich were costly, usually purple in color, with beautiful designs embroidered in gold thread. The Romans even had a special funeral bed on which the dead person lay for seven days, in his best clothes, surrounded by flowers. This bed had short ivory legs and was covered with purple blankets.

About the year 1300, the tester, or canopy bed, became popular in Europe. This was a bed with a tall post at each of the four corners of the frame. The tester was a cloth cover that was spread over the tops of the four posts and held up in the center by a rope attached to the ceiling. Sometimes these beds had curtains on all sides. After the year 1400 these beds became very large, often 7 or 8 feet long by 6 or 7 feet wide. Some of them were so large that they were almost a room within a room. Louis XIV, king of France, had 413 beds in his different castles and palaces. Some of his beds were carved by great artists of that time and the crimson velvet curtains that hung from the tester we re richly embroidered in gold thread and pearls. After the year 1700, feather beds, or what are called "comforters" in the United States today, were used in Germany as coverings. Iron beds appeared in Europe and became popular because they were easier to keep free of bedbugs. After 1850 the mattress was usually supported by a bedspring. This was a mesh of interwoven steel wire or flat steel bands in a light steel frame.